Royal Canadian Navy Monument

 Richmond Landing is older than the city itself. After the War of 1812, veterans of that war, with their families, landed here on the shores of the Ottawa River and made a trail inland to found the village of Richmond, which today is within the city boundaries of Ottawa. Here on the other side of an artificial channel of the river that serves to be a home for white water kayaking is another monument, this one to the Royal Canadian Navy.

There is a naval yardarm here, with a low wall of names of ships and navy stations from the long history of the Navy.

Many of them were named after cities and towns across the country. If they've been used repeatedly, the number is listed after the name. I wasn't sure about the markings on the stone, but this spot is relatively low in relation to the river, and I've seen the aftermath of high spring waters get in here.

The other portion of the monument is this large stone wall.

Inscribed on it are theatres of war and military operations the Navy has served in- many of them from the Second World War. The only one without a date refers to the Persian Gulf. Canadian ships were part of Desert Storm, and have been on duty there on a regular basis ever since.

I went down to the river itself. Quite a view downstream.

One last shot. The dark shape before the monument is that of a dog, patiently waiting for its human to stop doing what I was doing- taking photos.

Hostilities

 This sign was at the Canadian air base in Qatar during Desert Storm. The mission to drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait was a success, well planned out and carried out. In retrospect, it might have been better to have brought down Saddam Hussein.

As the 90s played out, Canadian forces served as peacekeepers in volatile conflicts of particular viciousness- Somalia, Rwanda, and the former Yugoslavia. It was that last country, a hotbed of ethnic conflicts that had only been held at bay by communism, where this flak vest comes from. It was worn by Lewis Mackenzie, the senior commanding general at Sarajevo. The other object is an Olympic torch from the Sarajevo games, given to Canadians.

The mission disintegrated into brutal partisan fighting, with war crimes being committed, and no peace to keep. It would take force to bring it to an end.

This transport Jeep, carrying Canadian soldiers, was shot at by Serb partisans. The men got away with their lives, but just barely.

This is the uniform of a Canadian pilot during the Yugoslavian mission.

Here we have a piece of one of the planes that hit the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001. Canada would be drawn into war as a result.

Canadians went to war in Afghanistan, fighting the Taliban alongside other western allies. This sniper rifle was used by a Canadian, who held the record for longest distance sniper kill for a number of years in killing a Taliban sniper- 2430 meters.

This transport is an artifact in and of itself. Its front end was blown up by an IED in 2005. Protective shielding in the rest of the vehicle saved the lives of the three occupants.

On the wall beyond it is Waiting For Twilight- Patrol Base Wilson, by William MacDonnell.

Berlin Wall

 This is a C2 105mm Howitzer, standard issue for Canadian military reserve units.

The path ahead features faces of the last decade of the Cold War- Reagan, Thatcher, and Gorbachev.

Canadian officer uniforms by the 80s were looking much as they do today.

This Warsaw Pact tank, along with some of the side arms, stands along the path.

1989 was the year of momentous change, with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism in eastern Europe. A section of the Wall stands here.

The Canadian government hosted a conference of foreign ministers to work out the process of German reunification. Germany presented this section of the wall to the Canadian people. Its place here makes sense. What has always surprised me is that it's not that thick. 

It was a time of optimism, the ending of tensions and of new possibilities. It didn't turn out that way.

In 1990, Saddam Hussein sent Iraqi forces into neighbouring Kuwait. President George H.W. Bush built a coalition of international forces to drive him out. Canada sent military forces into the Gulf, in what became known as Desert Shield and Desert Storm.

With the Canadian military was a commissioned war artist. Ted Zuber had fought as a young man in Korea. He painted Night Run in 1991.

Challenges

 One of the legacies of the Cold War was the development of the Canadian Rangers as a military force, locals in remote areas, particularly the north, maintaining defense in out of the way places.

This is a Howitzer.

The path ahead includes banner photographs overhead of Cold War leaders of the 1980s.

One of the real monsters of the time. Oh, and a Soviet tank.

In some ways, that last decade of the time was its most dangerous.

This is a section of the Berlin Wall. After the fall of the Wall, the Canadian government hosted a conference of foreign ministers from East and West Germany, the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, and France to lay out the course for the reunification of the country. This section of the wall was later given by Germany to Canada, and now resides here. A fitting location, I think.

After the whirlwind events of 1989 changed everything, it seemed possible to believe in a new world. But the 1990s would bring their own perils.

The invasion of Kuwait by Iraq in 1990 would lead to the Gulf War, with an international coalition carefully formed by American President George Bush to liberate the country. Canada was part of that coalition, sending military assets as part of Desert Shield and Desert Storm.

Ted Zuber, who I mentioned a couple of posts back, went back to war as a commissioned war artist. This is his painting Loaders.

Desert Storm would end in a resounding victory, a near perfect execution of military strategy.

For Canadians as the decade continued, peacekeeping missions would be undertaken in other parts of the world. One of the darkest chapters in that time was the genocide in Rwanda, where Romeo Dallaire, a Canadian general, led a UN mission that could do little more than bear witness as two sides of the country descended into a madness of genocide.

And these are the tools of that genocide.